The Women of April and Selected Works, an Exhibition by Lourdes Bernard

“The Women of April and Selected Works” is a visual arts exhibition by Brooklyn artist Lourdes Bernard currently at the Erdman Art Gallery at Princeton Theological Seminary.

In 2017, shortly after attending the DC Women’s March and as the previous administration rolled out controversial immigration policies, artist Lourdes Bernard began to research her family’s migration journey from the Dominican Republic in 1965. It was through this research that she discovered “Las Mujeres de Abril” (“The Women of April”), and learned of the US invasion that displaced thousands of Dominicans, including her family. The Women of April were attorneys, journalists, artists, teachers, academics, housewives, and students. Bernard excavates this hidden history through her work, re-imagining their stories and struggle for freedom. These images celebrate The Women of April who were untrained civilian resistance fighters who fought against the 42,000 US marines ordered by LBJ to invade and occupy the small Caribbean nation on April 1965.

“As honed down as Bernard’s drawings are, the specificity of physiognomies, poses, body language, demeanor, age, and apparel, and the brilliantly selected details of these portraits, which is what these pictures ultimately are, transmit with enormous precision readily recognizable types and individuals. Moreover, the images have been made more compelling and captivating through the acuity of Bernard’s adroit graphism: she knows how to draw. Her seemingly rapid sketches precisely transmit a pose, an expression, a scene, the dress, the gestures, the props—and draws the viewer as well into the world she depicts.” – Aimée Brown Price, 2020

The selected works include a Manhattan cityscape and a subway scene, “The Annunciation” on the #7 Queens bound train. They provide context for where the Dominican diaspora would settle and expand becoming the largest immigrant community in NYC today.